Lessons

Lesson Info

Basting & Binding Your Quilt

Um ok, so I'm done kind of closing that opening that I used to turn my quilt right side out and at this point I'm actually if this was a really quilt if I was going toe really make a go of it, I would go ahead and basted so let's talk about that a little bit it's not going to be a little bit different when we based a quilt for for binding it just a tiny bit, but the basics are the same. So here's, what you're going to need if you're going to baste a quilt you're going to need well in this situation if you did this, this is what you would need you would need some safety pins and there's quite a few safety pins theirs of these kind of safety pins, which are actually quilters safety pins and you see that they're kind of they've got a little kind of angle in them and that's so that you can put them in and bring them out they fit into the quote uh very easily then s o I have quite a few of those I also have some straight kind of safety pins um there might be not ideal, but I run a lot of ra...

ces and have a lot of bibs and so you get a lot of safety pins from that um and they worked just fine uh no I'm always the one at the end of the race is like we're going to keep the safety pins so um so whenever you you based whether it's this method or whether you were going to do you do the other method meaning the one that ends up with a bounding binding that you see from the outside you always start in the middle and you're going toe poke that safety pin in and then rocket up and close it I'm gonna introduce you all to this little gadget this is not a necessity by any shade of the imagination but it sure is that helpful little tool it's called a quick clip um and um I used to really scoff at this I was like who can't close their own you know, safety pins I don't see what the problem is but it really makes closing safety pins if you've got a big quilt that now you're on the a floor and you're basting and you're you're cursing it because you know who wants to be on the floor basing and then you gotta move all the furniture back this makes your life a little bit easier um so I'm going tio add my safety pins now this is a tiny little quilt I would usually put them about a hands distance apart either clockwise or counterclockwise it doesn't really matter but definitely from the center out so I'm going to put another one here and then I'll put another one about right here again this is such a small little piece that I can go ahead and just, you know, put a few in all honesty I could put none and it wouldn't hurt anything there's just not enough space for the parts to shift okay, so there's there's my basting that's that's plenty and the sad thing about basing the one that you put in the center is the first thing you're going to do is take it out because you got to take out the the safety pins before you get to them um so ideally my if I was doing this free motion I would probably do a circular pattern from the outside but I think what I'll do is kind of concentric squares because I'm going to be doing it on a regular machine without a walking foot which is not an ideal situation ideally I would have a walking foot so I could control the tension from the from the bottom thread but it's it is doable and it's such a small piece that I don't think it's going to affect it so I'm going to basically go out in concentric squares pivoting as I go around the corners until I have it towards the edge is when I get towards all this bulk it's going to get more difficult and I'll probably will you know just just leave it at that point I could have avoided a lot of this bulk if I would have trimmed away the batting a little like quarter inch smaller then um then the edge of the quilt so if you decide to use this method I would really recommend that you do that so let's see how this goes okay okay so yeah like I said the first thing I'm going to do take out that center pin which you know makes you wonder why you put it in there in the first place um and here's where you can really kind of play with color thread that you use you want um you want something that's going to kind of coordinate with your backing if you're kind of a long time coulter and you've got some you know great technique you might really want to show off those stitches and use especially on the back ah thread that's really going to show up if you're a little more timid or maybe you're you're new to it ah great backing is something that's got a lot of patterning in it because it's going to hide all your mistakes and bobbles and so that's certainly a way to go so you see there's going to be a lot of pivoting going on here just rounding around now I think this sort of size is obviously something that's really smart for a beginner toe to start well yeah it's so much easier to manipulate I was thinking early when you showed us you're incredibly beautiful quilt how you would actually manipulate that around the machine when you have the center was you know you've got around around around I mean, there really isn't a good place to start if you're a beginner or I know I would start and you don't even need to start with something that's pieced I would start by just making a few quote sandwiches out of fabric, you know and then just practice now this method of quoting you khun do even on a big piece because though you're you're pivoting here your feet dogs air still feeding your fabric into the machine but if you were trying to learn free motion I definitely practice on just like a couple pieces of fabric with batting in between but again here the thie idea of the improv is to embrace your long enough you're not worried about necessarily having dead straight lines or oh no mayes is asking it seems you are using the same fred for courting but or do you sometimes you something heavier? Oh I would only use ah I I would use the same type of threat but if I was say working on something really colorful I might use a variegated thread I might use a decorative thread um I would never use a quilting ah hand quilting thread in my machine that that's too heavy for your machine we I think you'd agree with me yeah and I've also heard this waxed and you shouldn't send all that wax further your machine yeah yeah you know, just gum up the works holly that was the greatest movie ever seen for those who missed it the home haleigh was just trying to get around the studio out getting in front of the camera it was amazing so this is essentially machine engineer your hand stitching here yeah so I handed out needles so that everyone could do the top state did I give you okay good. So yeah, like I said there's a lot of pivoting when you stop um well I gotta actually before pivot I need to move this pin never you never want to run over these pins it's not like the um uh the sewing pins you really never want to run over these kids will bend your needle. Um so pivoting is when you come to an end of a stitching row you think your needle and you turn your, um your work um ninety degrees I tell you something else that's really great is I have a little magnetic pole that holds all my pins um I really love that thing you never worry about pins just like falling out because they're all magnetically and you remove the bull further and further away can work on your layup shots that's really important too so you know what? You could do it if you wanted to use some of these little blocks to just kind of practice some of these techniques whether it's machine quilting or is that there's instead of using this kind of batting which is just a cotton batting I guess I didn't actually talk about the batting so I do want to do that a little bit anyway instead of using this kind of the standard cotton batting you could do that heat resistant betting and make a little pot holders so it's not like you know all your work is just for you to practice they could be you know something that you can actually use which you know is always lovely to have so yeah let's talk about batting a little bit we're gonna have the all important batting discussion um and um and that's because I really don't ever want anybody to use polyester batting ever uh no but how do you feel you really feel so you know usually I tell my glasses if you even like me just a little bit don't use polyester betting um so this is cotton batting one hundred percent cotton batting it's perfect for you know I mean certainly in the south I would be I would be hard pressed to find well batting but I've also heard that you can you can find will batting and if you lived in colder climates that would be a good option and you can also find combinations like there's like bamboo and bad things that have bits of silk in them so there are many lovely kind of natural fiber bad ings and I really would stick to those polyester batting is just a really bad thing I think I want to start a rumor that originated in the love canal so don't use polyester padding which if you know what the love canal is and you're of a different generation if you feel like you want a thicker loft you could get higher loft cotton batting lost being more fluffy nous you know um and also another thing that it's important to note is all the bad ings tell you how closely they need to be stitched so that you don't doesn't you know as you wash it it doesn't kind of pull apart or mostly pull apart so cotton batting used you need a stitch about every four inches so some stitch every four inches which is not not it's actually quite quite a bit of distance in between stations pardon me, I don't maybe forcing you think I would remember but I would put the top on top of your so your block is it face up its face that fabulous put the backing on top of that okay all right now cut them all out so that you can so there at the same time they're all the same size you don't have to you could have done that afterwards but you know um and after you so did right on dh then so it using leaving a quarter and see malone's I'm not quarter into the leaving, you know, five or six yeah, yeah some kind of gap so you can turn it right right out. All right? I'm almost a little sample guy here one of the things they're going to deal with especially for using a machine and using a much bigger quilt is getting the bulk of that quilt under the I like to call the throat of the machine you know, there's all these ways that you can kind of roll it there's even clips to kind of hold it still so or hold it in place while you once you've rolled it so there's lots of tools to kind of help with managing that bulk, but especially when you're working in the center of the quilt there's almost nothing you can do to avoid having to move around a bulky quilted just it just is but once you get out to the further out a little bit further out toe the periphery uh you're not gonna have that concern anymore, all right, there we go we have one little machine ditch cool little teeny tiny quilt all machine quilted and then it looks nice on the back too and then since I didn't watch the fabric, if I went and washed it, it would get it would kind of, like, pucker up all around all those stitches, and it would look great, so that is one way tio to finish, um, a quilt s so we're going to go ahead and make that, and we're also going to make one where we make binding for it, so I have another top, but what I did that I picked to make my binding quote, okay, I'm gonna go ahead and just press its flood, so here the rules are slightly different. The basting thing is still around. Um, but I'm going to need some backing it's a tiny little thing, I'm going to need some batting, I think I was gonna use this one well, stuff, um and I'm going to need my coat up. I'm going to go ahead. I'm not going to trim anything. I'm going to go ahead and start basting it now if it was a really coil to pendant had any substantial size to it, I would be masking taping at using masking tape. Tio secure the, um, uh, fabric the backing fabric to my surface, the table, the floor there's, another great product, it's actually called spray basting um and um I use it all the time I didn't bring it with me because I was coming on a plane and it's an aerosol and I was pretty sure that it might create you know, say issue on dh and they'd already taken my toothpaste away so I didn't want to really think mess with him anymore, so but I love spray basting so you literally if you have a floor, you've got to have a floor for this stuff because if you have carpet you've made a big mistake you spray the floor where you're going to put your your fabric down and then you put your fabric down and it sticks it's not a permanent sticks, but it holds it to the floor and then you spray the backing the interior to the you know, the wrong side of your backing and then you put your batting down it holds that you know and then you can even spray I don't like to spray the cool bells the cool top it'll spray the top side of the backing of the batting and then put my quote top on that two and it all holds together it's not enough in my opinion tio quilt with you still got a based it, but you don't have to deal with one of my kind of little pet annoyances is, you know you put a piece of masking tape over there then you come over here and put a piece of masking tape masking tape over there it's like you know it's like a joke it comes up and okay so you put one over here you know you're constantly dealing with that but oh or then you sit down in the middle of all of this to start pin basting and then several of the masking tapes come up but it doesn't happen with spray basing strip of masking tape yeah I can't be bothered with all those rippling and I do the whole thing right and then I smooth it all out and I sometimes I don't even take the other end yeah yeah and that it always worked for me but I also don't work on the floor I do half a time on a big standing high table and you quilted and then you do the other half or you know I think the whole thing with pins I lay it out half on the table and I tape it down and I pin based it and then I roll it up on and they move it all over and I can I smooth out the backing in and I tape it and I do the batting and it works for me all the time and that's just the way I figured it out and then I started reading colt in books and everybody uses little pieces of tape yeah and that was like I hate tearing little pieces of death so I just use a piece of tape the width of the entire quilt well here's one thing that spray based and gets you the taping doesn't do you wash your floor after you based a quilt why don't I do it on the table but even ok do you wash your table no no I tell you what that's right that's right basing on the floor next thing I clean floor too because he watches so then you have to wash the floor you okay don't make you any close and you won't have to wash the floor so I'm going to need a few safety pins for this and and again I'm going to start in the center and based starting with this with my center um point and then move around clockwise counterclockwise however you want to move and make sure that I've secured the layers together you know about a hands with it's a part now since we're back on the circle block for this particular killed quill we did have ah somebody online watching saying I've tried the circle block but I've got lots of puckers and it doesn't want to lay flat do you have any clue what I may have done wrong? I have to say I'm really without seeing you know it is but I would suggest that a she make sure that you cut them exactly you know the ark the framing pieces cut too size to the ark but a little bit bigger and that she start her pinning from the center remember I said to make a little kind of notch and pin it from that point and then maybe just three quarters of an inch on one side and all the way down one side till I've got the entire arc uh secured to the framing piece and then on the other side and that should solve any kind of pucker issues on hopefully they watched the course back they'll be able to see exactly maybe you and I did it multiple times yeah, so what we're going to do with this little one is we're gonna hand tie it, which I've got to be honest, I rarely rarely do but you know could be fun to do and then we're going to find it and I'm going to show you all how to make this thing I'm going to show you two ways and by of making binding, you don't really need to make bias binding for this. But if you buy euro if you buy packaged, quote binding, which again don't but if you do it is always on the bias and there's there's a fair amount of folks who believe that you want to get bias finding that because the warp and weft is is angled all that kind of push and pull on the on the binding as you bring it around as the kind of lives around your quilt that he'll have better wear and tear, I haven't noticed that, you know, I have problems with wear and tear, you know, with quilts coming apart at the binding because I use trait of grain binding but, you know, I just wanted to give that everyone is an option. Um so in order, tio tow hand tie, I'm going to need an embroidery needle, which I thought I'd oh, I did I pulled it out and put it right here um and some pearl cotton or sort of embroidery thread um and so I've already got my quote, all all basted it's ready to go um and I'm gonna cut small it's everyone every they called hand tying because that's what it literally is it's a syriza little ties you put all around the quilt to secured because we're using cotton batting we don't wantto leave more than more than, say, four inches untied you're gonna come from the bottom. You could secure this in a hoop if you want to, but this is so small that it's not necessary start here, okay, so you're going to come from the bottom no, actually you're going to come from the top story through the bottom you gotta love seem there and leave a substantial tail because we're going to tie this in a second so you want enough you know so you can tie and then turn it over and come back up and then you can kind of release the needle said to decide where you can see it and I like to tie it a couple times at least and there you go that's your first type trim it down don't trim it to the very bottom cause that'll unravel it can use a little bit more this thread you become you know nearby and to make another tie randomly placed you can replace them I mean, I could just say I'm going to put one here and then another I could go yeah, absolutely I could yeah one right there here too is where if you got a lot of bulk in your seems it's not going to be the most pleasant experience in the world I can remove this pin since now I've got a tie there maybe this one inch this's maybe an inch from here, maybe a little bit less. I mean, they said on cotton batting you need tio put a stitch every four inches so this is well within those parameters I mean, I could make these ties a little bit shorter if I wanted to I mean, a lot of folks feel like it's a decorative element as well which I I can see that and then you're just gonna keep doing that until you've put some ties you know? So I'm gonna put another one maybe right here I'll just kind of go around in a swirl of sorts it's not going to be is obvious acidified machine quoted or even hand quilted it well, I'm sure it goes up in the right spot that's basically how we're gonna hand tie our quilt you're doing a lot of pivoting, huh? You're doing a lot of pivoting where you're turning your fabric, you're you're sinking your needle and turning your fabric about ninety degrees or so as you go around your quote yes how did you avoid pivoting a little bit but mostly I did straight lines yeah along the length ok would go down and then I would pivot just to the end where there wasn't all right bulk and then I would pivot that looks great, but the walking foot would would make it even better. Well, you'd still give it though, with no no, but I mean, yeah, I just because it's like walking foot it's not about it's, not about it's about the fact you still got the dogs and gay yes, yeah, because you don't have to pivot when you're free motion quote you know, but you get a pass on that, yeah and you know the ties khun b a design element I'm I'm going to be completely frank here and say that I've never been somebody that's likely to tie a quilt but if you if you're you know you get to the point that you well I mean if you get to the point with that you've you know you said when you ready to finish it you're like I am so tired of stitching in any way shape or form then this is a good solution or this is a great way to involve kids this is something that a kid could do so if you know you want your kids maybe you're making a quote for a loved one and you want your kids to be involved and tying it is a great way to bring them into it to you later on strip the ends down further what do they always remain? They've got to remain to some degree to sniff him down to the very bottom I think I'd be nervous here of this maybe being a child's quilt aura or even worse a peck quilt thinks there's something their feet they pick up way quite easily have you found that happens? You know what's so I have had a quilt that I made for my bed but it didn't tie it I had hand quoted it and really it wasn't so much that I had a much beloved dog and he got on the bed on a regular or she got on the bed on a regular basis. And, um, um, the problem was not so much that they picked at, you know, stitches or whatever, but just, you know, he should scratch to get comfortable or whatever, and that eventually kind of ruined my quote, but I kept the dog. Of course, it was. Get another quilt. I'd make that. But what you're talking about may think, well, isn't a long time making it, but I decided to forgive the dog first quill and the cat ate every last one of, like, an issue that was the best play toy ever. So you get the kind of general idea about about tying a quilt.